Belle Wong: writer, reader, creativity junkie

The Big Catch-Up Post

It’s been six days since we moved into our new place in the city, and while I’ve been active on Twitter, I haven’t been here on the blog at all. So I thought it was time for The Big Catch-up Post!

The Move

The actual move itself went quite well. We hired a fabulous moving company that worked quickly and efficiently to move us from the ‘burbs into the city. They do a lot of condo moves, so they were familiar with the ins and outs of moving into a condo.

That night, of course, we were surrounded by boxes. I’m happy to report that our new place isn’t as small as we’d been thinking, and we have TWO walls of bookcases! So plenty of room for all the books we ended up keeping, plus room for more (although I suspect, after all this decluttering we’ve been doing, I will be sticking with ebooks from now on).

Adjustment

So how are we all doing?

Well, I pretty much fell in love with the place from the moment we moved in. I love being so close to so many things. I love the cityscape outside our living room window. I love the lake view outside the office and bedroom windows.

Our Cityscape View

I was especially thrilled that our furniture didn’t make the rooms feel smaller – the rooms, when empty, already felt smaller than we were used to. But, illogical as it sounds, the place was actually transformed once we got our furniture in. It looks and feels bigger. And of course, very home-like, because it’s filled with our things.

Dylan, our eight-year-old, was very sad the night before the big move. He was born in the house we’re leaving behind, and has lived there all his life. We told him it was okay to feel sad, but to make sure feeling sad didn’t hold him back from also loving the new place if that’s what he felt like.

Children are so resilient. The next evening, even though he was surrounded by boxes and couldn’t get at a lot of his toys, he was proclaiming, “I love our new home!” And he hasn’t stopped saying it ever since.

The Night of Our Big Move

And then there’s my husband.

He’s a wonderful man, my husband. As many of you know, he loves to cook, and handles all the cooking at home. He is also a lot neater than I am, so he tends to do most of the cleaning, too. He’s a real gem and I love him to bits.

BUT.

You could say my husband’s not good with change.

And to make things just that much more challenging, the new kitchen is roughly a third of the size of the old kitchen. Not only that, in our old place, we had “the old kitchen” – the room that used to be our kitchen before we renovated and added a new kitchen – and we’d never gotten around to renovating that room to be anything but a kitchen. So in our old place, he had TWO kitchens. TWO fridges. A stand-up freezer. And two rooms full of cupboard space. All of which he utilized.

I wish we had a larger kitchen here! I suspect his adjustment process is going to take a while …

Other Bits and Pieces

Jamie! We’re going to see Jamie Oliver this coming Wednesday! And I’m super thrilled, because Roy Thomson Hall, the venue, is within walking distance from our new place.

This coming week is a deadline-filled week for me, but being so close to the event means I’ll only have to take four hours off. I can squeeze it in! And Ward is happy, because Jamie is one of his favourite celebrity chefs.

NaNoWriMo Fail. At least, I think so. I’m a whole week behind – I realized right after the move there was no way I could do it all. Something had to give, and unfortunately, it has to be the writing. Deadlines, unpacking and getting settled into our new place must take priority.

I’m hoping next year will be different in terms of deadlines!

Tweetstock! Last month I decided to try out my first Twitter conference/event. I hadn’t realized it would fall in the week of our move (since we were supposed to move in on November 1, not 7). On the night before Tweetstock 6, I was actually debating whether I could take the time off to go.

I did decide to go, and I’m very glad that I did! I had a lot of fun, learned a few things and met some really nice people.

It was so much fun, I’m thinking seriously about going to the next BEA and the next Book Blogger Convention! I’ve met so many wonderful book lovers these past three years, and after getting a taste of meeting some Twitter peeps in real life, I would really love to meet some of my book blogger friends in real life too.

So that’s my update for now. I’m keeping my fingers crossed I’ll be able to get back to regular blogging and blog reading in a few weeks!

Your cityscape view is fantastic! I’m glad the move went well, and that you’re so close to downtown now. I really miss living near the centre of a city, myself. Everything’s so far away when you live in the suburbs.

Good to hear you love your new home. And I can see the beauty of your city-scape. Still, I am so happy that I am surrounded by trees and shrubbery. But I suppose it is just as well you love your view and I love mine

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I'm a writer, avid reader, artist-at-heart & book indexer. I blog about writing, books, art, creativity, spirituality, & the power of the imagination. Oh, and I like to write stuff about life in general, too!

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

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